Abstract
Sun Gods and sodomy: The lethal shame conflict in Racine's "Phedre". - Phaedra in Racine's eponymous tragedy is the victim of a deadly shame conflict. The inherited family curse of her sexually deviant forebears is deeply inscribed in her psyche. Together with the experience of love-loss resulting from her rejection by her stepson Hippolytus, it prompts her to embrace death by suicide as the ...
Abstract
Sun Gods and sodomy: The lethal shame conflict in Racine's "Phedre". - Phaedra in Racine's eponymous tragedy is the victim of a deadly shame conflict. The inherited family curse of her sexually deviant forebears is deeply inscribed in her psyche. Together with the experience of love-loss resulting from her rejection by her stepson Hippolytus, it prompts her to embrace death by suicide as the culmination of her shame. Racine's relentless psychological drama is structured throughout by the shame affect. The central figure is constantly haunted by the burning gaze of her divine mythological grandfather Helios. Racine situates the indissoluble conflicts of the tragedy in the mind of its heroine and dissects the shame affect with the estheticizing language of the genre. Phaedra's self-destructive flight into infernal night is the last resort for a figure convulsed by lethal shame.
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